Entry tags:
i think it might be friday
1. I got the most wonderful package from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elfin with knitted goods for all and some delightful notebooks for me. Thank you!! <3
2. Lowering the dosage of Topamax is already starting to work. I feel much less spacy and fuzzy and much more myself. Hopefully I will continue to adjust and feel even more normal.
3. I think the buntings have gone. I haven't seen them since we got back from Josh's parents. Maybe they migrated? IDK
4. I procrastinated on getting my fall classes together, and I was starting to get lowkey anxious about it, but I got a lot of work done yesterday, and I feel much better about it. Whew! :)
5.
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I really like this book. The characters are deftly drawn, and the world building is excellent. Nina is a wonderful protagonist. I root for her throughout the book and hope for her to find her way--not only to love but to acceptance for her gift and to a feeling of belonging. So much to love here--pseudo Victorian aristocracy and amateur scientists and entomology and duels and revenge oh my! I highly recommend.
View all my reviews
So the basic premise of the book is that Hector is a poor nobody orphan with telekinetic powers. He meets the impoverished aristocratic Valerie and they fall in love. They get engaged and he goes abroad to win his fortune so they can marry. While he's abroad, she marries Gaetan, a super wealthy aristocrat. Ten years later, Hector returns as a wealthy man and starts courting Gaetan's cousin Nina (also telekinetic) to become close to Valerie but falls in love with Nina instead. He realizes this too late and loses his chance with Nina when she discovers his past with Valerie. Valerie then makes a business arrangement with Luc for Luc to court Nina but ultimately Nina and Hector's love cannot be denied. Luc gets mad at essentially being left at the altar and challenges Hector to a duel; at the duel, Valerie's scheming becomes apparent to Gaetan, and he sends her away to a far flung estate while Hector and Nina live happily ever after. So a delightfully convoluted romance plot with lots of true love and revenge and pining and thwarted desire. Delicious!
I think what I like most about this book is how sympathetically all the characters are treated, even the villains. You expect the protagonists to be sympathetic, and they are. Hector is a good man. He's noble and honorable. He tells the truth. He keeps his word even when it is detrimental for him to do so. He is motivated by his unerring love for Valerie even though by the time we meet him keeping that promise of love has become dysfunctional and unhealthy for him. He errs in courting Nina as a ruse, but in all his other dealings with her he is kind and treats her telekinesis as a gift rather than the embarrassment that others do. Nina is smart and kind and outspoken; she prefers truth to artifice, simple to complicated. The reader wants her to find someone who appreciates her for who she is rather than someone who expects her to conform to social ideals.
Valerie edges a bit too close to cardboard cutout villain at times, but even she is sympathetic. She's a woman who played by the rules; she accepted the patriarchal strictures she was expected to abide by--she had to marry the man chosen by her family in order to elevate her family financially rather than marrying the man she loved and allowing her family to diminish even further. And in return, she feels like she gets too little. She feels no love for Gaetan, only resentment, but she misunderstands his feelings for her and thinks he doesn't love her either. She doesn't think he does enough for her family financially and that she has to abase herself to get what little he does contribute. She is at the top of aristocratic society, but that wealth and position and name are all that she has gained.
Gaetan could be a villain, and for the longest time in the book, you only get Valerie's POV on him, and it's easy to think he is this boring, kinda dumb, lacklaster dude who isn't really in love with her and who only sees her as an object he purchased in marriage. And then at the end you get his words and his thoughts, and you realize that he loves her, but she's poisoned the well. She's kept him at arm's length. They could have had a very different relationship if she had allowed them to.
Luc is the final potential villain, but I hesitate to even call him that. He's the youngest son, a spendthrift and a bit of a womanizer, but he's looking to turn it around, and he's got a plan to start a business. He approaches Valerie with a business plan that doesn't involve Nina, but she suggests that he marry Nina, and he agrees. His initial interests in her are financial, but he does seem to develop feelings for her, and he's not a bad guy. He's more depicted as a guy who's lost his way and who can't figure out what to do.
Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed. Highly recommend. Thanks toexecutrix.
elfin with knitted goods for all and some delightful notebooks for me. Thank you!! <32. Lowering the dosage of Topamax is already starting to work. I feel much less spacy and fuzzy and much more myself. Hopefully I will continue to adjust and feel even more normal.
3. I think the buntings have gone. I haven't seen them since we got back from Josh's parents. Maybe they migrated? IDK
4. I procrastinated on getting my fall classes together, and I was starting to get lowkey anxious about it, but I got a lot of work done yesterday, and I feel much better about it. Whew! :)
5.
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-GarciaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I really like this book. The characters are deftly drawn, and the world building is excellent. Nina is a wonderful protagonist. I root for her throughout the book and hope for her to find her way--not only to love but to acceptance for her gift and to a feeling of belonging. So much to love here--pseudo Victorian aristocracy and amateur scientists and entomology and duels and revenge oh my! I highly recommend.
View all my reviews
So the basic premise of the book is that Hector is a poor nobody orphan with telekinetic powers. He meets the impoverished aristocratic Valerie and they fall in love. They get engaged and he goes abroad to win his fortune so they can marry. While he's abroad, she marries Gaetan, a super wealthy aristocrat. Ten years later, Hector returns as a wealthy man and starts courting Gaetan's cousin Nina (also telekinetic) to become close to Valerie but falls in love with Nina instead. He realizes this too late and loses his chance with Nina when she discovers his past with Valerie. Valerie then makes a business arrangement with Luc for Luc to court Nina but ultimately Nina and Hector's love cannot be denied. Luc gets mad at essentially being left at the altar and challenges Hector to a duel; at the duel, Valerie's scheming becomes apparent to Gaetan, and he sends her away to a far flung estate while Hector and Nina live happily ever after. So a delightfully convoluted romance plot with lots of true love and revenge and pining and thwarted desire. Delicious!
I think what I like most about this book is how sympathetically all the characters are treated, even the villains. You expect the protagonists to be sympathetic, and they are. Hector is a good man. He's noble and honorable. He tells the truth. He keeps his word even when it is detrimental for him to do so. He is motivated by his unerring love for Valerie even though by the time we meet him keeping that promise of love has become dysfunctional and unhealthy for him. He errs in courting Nina as a ruse, but in all his other dealings with her he is kind and treats her telekinesis as a gift rather than the embarrassment that others do. Nina is smart and kind and outspoken; she prefers truth to artifice, simple to complicated. The reader wants her to find someone who appreciates her for who she is rather than someone who expects her to conform to social ideals.
Valerie edges a bit too close to cardboard cutout villain at times, but even she is sympathetic. She's a woman who played by the rules; she accepted the patriarchal strictures she was expected to abide by--she had to marry the man chosen by her family in order to elevate her family financially rather than marrying the man she loved and allowing her family to diminish even further. And in return, she feels like she gets too little. She feels no love for Gaetan, only resentment, but she misunderstands his feelings for her and thinks he doesn't love her either. She doesn't think he does enough for her family financially and that she has to abase herself to get what little he does contribute. She is at the top of aristocratic society, but that wealth and position and name are all that she has gained.
Gaetan could be a villain, and for the longest time in the book, you only get Valerie's POV on him, and it's easy to think he is this boring, kinda dumb, lacklaster dude who isn't really in love with her and who only sees her as an object he purchased in marriage. And then at the end you get his words and his thoughts, and you realize that he loves her, but she's poisoned the well. She's kept him at arm's length. They could have had a very different relationship if she had allowed them to.
Luc is the final potential villain, but I hesitate to even call him that. He's the youngest son, a spendthrift and a bit of a womanizer, but he's looking to turn it around, and he's got a plan to start a business. He approaches Valerie with a business plan that doesn't involve Nina, but she suggests that he marry Nina, and he agrees. His initial interests in her are financial, but he does seem to develop feelings for her, and he's not a bad guy. He's more depicted as a guy who's lost his way and who can't figure out what to do.
Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed. Highly recommend. Thanks to
executrix.
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4) But we've still got plenty of time! And I will stick my fingers in my ears and hum loudly if anyone implies otherwise.
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We have got so many doctor's appointments and shopping trips and meetings starting that first week of August that I know I have got to get it done and soon or I will be really scrambling.
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It's great that the lower dosage is already working for you!
Congrats on getting a lot of work done and banishing some of your anxiety!
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Thank you, sweetie. :)
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I'm procrastinating on my procrastination.
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Well, I'm back to doing that myself, so solidarity.
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4) Yep, both the procrastination and the anxiety sound like something I am familiar with as well. Including the rush of ideas when you finally hit that stride (that is, get a foot on the ground)
5) Looks like I finally need to read any Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I have been hearing so many great things about her, and yet there is so much other great stuff coming out that I keep pushing her down the book-buying list every time.
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You should read her! This book was fun. But I totally hear you. I could read all day every day from now until the end of time and still not read everything I'd enjoy.
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Yep. I think my Goodreads list is at 3000 books right now, and my bookmarks at the AO3 are at about 7000 odd books. Never mind the DVD shelf and the podcast list... I hear you!
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I really do enjoy them. There was a Nature on this week that I only saw the last half of that was about hummingbirds and I could have easily watched like seventeen hours of it. So pretty. They really are like little jewels darting about. And I had no idea there are that many different species that look so vastly different from each other.
(Got your email! I will email you to set up a time today during the Interminable Monday of Serial Doctor's Visits LOL).
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That sounds more relaxing than my tendency to try to build an encyclopaedic knowledge of crime shows and prestige television ;)
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It is very comforting because nothing much surprising can happen. I mean, some of the nature shows are dramatic (or at least they try to be with the music LOL), but it's nature. I don't feel very dramatic about it. It doesn't hurt my feelings or scare me or make me cry. It's just pretty.
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Yay!
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*hugs*
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HUGS!